Sophie Cunningham had quite a weekend in Las Vegas, making headlines before scoring 20 points and tying her season high with six 3-pointers during the Indiana Fever's 109-75 demolition of the defending WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces on Sunday.
One day after soaking up the sun at the Encore Beach Club with teammates Lexi Hull and Tyasha Harris, Cunningham entered a sports atmosphere she'd never been in.
And while she thought she was simply attending UFC 329 for Conor McGregor's return, she and her now-popular finger point were thrust into the spotlight.
Attending her first fight, close friend and UFC president Dana White shocked her when he turned her joke into reality.
"Dana came over to say what's up, and I was like, 'Hey, if you need a ring girl, let me know,'" Cunningham said.
To which White told reporters he replied: "Then you're going to walk around it."
Cunningham didn't believe him when White told her she would walk around the apron of the Octagon before the first round of Paddy Pimblett's fight against Benoit Saint-Denis, thinking he was joking.
Sophie Cunningham Shows Out at UFC 329!
The next thing Cunningham knew, she was talking with the face of UFC cage girls, Red Dela Cruz, preparing to make her stroll in a black scoop-neck tank top and black sequined shorts, with the No. 1 card held high.
"The ring girls, the real ones, they were helping me," Cunningham said. "You have to have a little personality, a little sass to it. It was a good time. The whole experience overall was wonderful. It was so much fun. It was just a great environment."
Once the crowd figured out who was making the apron walk, it roared with approval. And Cunningham ate it up, responding with her charismatic smile and a few of her trademark finger points in different directions.
"It was fun to see, obviously," Fever star Caitlin Clark said. "It's cool that people love it, and it shows that people are really paying attention to the WNBA and the players we have and the personalities we have across this league. So, it's certainly fun. Maybe we'll see her do more of it.
"Who knows, maybe she'll be a UFC fighter at one point. I don't know, that's up to Sophie."
Dana White on hiring Sophie Cunningham to be a ring girl:
“I decided about 8 MINS before she did it. She walked in, she goes ‘Oh, I want to walk around that.’ I said ‘Then you’re going to walk around it!’ pic.twitter.com/lNE7Ok2eC8
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) July 12, 2026
Miss Popularity
Whatever she does, Cunningham's star is certainly on the rise.
Cunningham's following began growing while she was starring for the Phoenix Mercury, but has grown exponentially since joining the Fever, building one of the WNBA's strongest fanbases both on and off the court.
Cunningham's electric personality and active social media presence continue to generate excitement wherever she goes.
"That's part of what the WNBA does, that people want us involved, and are giving us those opportunities," she said. "So anytime we can go and support another sport. Our schedule is brutal; we really don't get to do a lot of stuff. So when we do have a couple of days, you know, team bond or go do stuff that is fun and extracurricular, of course, we're going to say yeah to that."
Cunningham is easily one of the WNBA's most recognizable personalities, which is why we've seen her grace the pages of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue earlier this year, why adidas recently gave Cunningham her own player-exclusive shoe, and why her fashion sense has grown mass appeal on her social media pages.
Whether or not Cunningham has thought about parlaying her brand beyond the court remains to be seen, but the fact is, she's evolved from being a physical basketball player into one of the league's most marketable personalities.
"When you grow up as an athlete, you always feel like you’re bigger than everyone else, and you know you’re beautiful on the inside, you know you’re beautiful on the outside, but you have to convince yourself of that sometimes," Cunningham told SI on the set of her photoshoot in Florida. "But after (this) photo shoot, it’s like 'Wow, I wish every little girl and every little boy could just feel what that felt like.'
"I feel so confident, I feel so beautiful, I feel so amazing in my own skin and what my body has to offer."
Back to the Fever
Cunningham and the Fever return home after a 3-1 road trip as one of the hottest teams in the league.
After opening the season 5-5, the Fever have won nine of 13 since June 8, and are the highest-scoring team with 97.7 points per game in that span. And while only seven of those wins have come against teams below them in the standings, their trajectory is heading in the right direction before All-Star Weekend in Chicago.
For Cunningham, her 20-point performance is a reminder to coach Stephanie White, who is ready to come off the bench with jumper cables when her team is running stagnant.
"I think that's what it is to be a pro, is just to stay ready," said Cunningham, who is tied for eighth in the league among reserves with 10.0 points per game. "When you have megastars on your team, you know they're going to get the majority of the shots, as they should.
"And so us others, we just have to be prepared to knock it down when we get the ball."
Prepared is the perfect way to describe one of the polarizing figures in the WNBA.
Be it at a Las Vegas day club with bottle servers bringing the spotlight to you with a sign saying "EBC LOVES SOPHIE," or if you're lying on a sandy beach in Florida for arguably the most popular issue for any magazine of the past seven decades, or if the president of the UFC says you're walking the apron of the Octagon before a fight.
Cunningham is quickly etching herself into a fabric embroidered with the faces of the WNBA.
W.G. Ramirez is a veteran sports writer from Las Vegas and a Senior Staff Writer at Ballislife.com. Follow him on X at @WillieGRamirez.
